Shooting Death was a mistake, as Zane soon discovered. For the man who killed the Incarnation of Death was immediately forced to assume the vacant position! Thereafter, he must speed over the world, riding his pale horse, and ending the lives of others. Zane was forced to accept his unwelcome task, despite the rules that seemed woefully unfair. But then he found himself being drawn into an evil plot of Satan. Already the prince of Evil was forging a trap in which Zane must act to destroy Luna, the woman he loved.
He could see only one possible way to defeat the Father of Lies. It was unthinkable—but he had no other solution! Languages English. In this first novel of the Incarnations of Immortality, Piers Anthony combines a gripping story of romance and conflicting loyalties with a deeply moving examination of the meaning of life and death. Piers Anthony - Author. Why is availability limited? Sign in Cancel. Add a card. These series, and Piers in general, go into my adult category of things-I-can't-believe-I-didn't-realize-were-sexist.
As an adult, I started to revisit some of my favourite series from childhood just to see if they'd hold up. Animorphs, which blew my mind and changed my entire life from grade 4 onward, does not hold up, writing-wise, but the stories are still good and still pretty mind-blowing as the introduction for a year-old to serious for a year-old sci-fi. The Giver does hold up magnificently.
Piers Anthony just ends up being a sexist old man writing juvenile screeds couched in sci-fi and fantasy. And unfortunately, I still like his stories and ideas. There's a lot in there that's good. Alas, there's so much that's bad that it's really not worth it.
For example, in the very first scene of this book, we meet a gorgeous rich woman who will fall in love with any person who saves her life. This is not even the point of the scene: the point is that the crafty magic stone peddler stole the poor dupe's true love What does true love even mean if you can just swoop in and steal it from someone?
Is this woman's mind so empty of her own thoughts and feelings that she counts adrenaline as love? That's about where I stopped reading and started skimming. The series as a whole and Piers' writing as a whole is filled with gorgeous women who all look exactly the same - big eyes, small noses, long hair, ample bosom but not too ample, just the perfect amount of ample, small waists, and above all, as young as possible without being creepy though he sometimes just says "fuck it" and goes with creepy.
There are, of course, middle-aged women, women with large noses and small eyes, and sometimes they even have brains but it's always despite their looks. Hey, a women who has been living for 20 years on her wits in exile, I wonder what she'll say first when she meets someone from her home? What wonderful and interesting things are you thinking about right now? Piers, you have captured a woman's mind perfectly. I AM always thinking about how my nose could be more pert, and am also constantly looking for validation from men that they find me sexually attractive.
Literally every second of every day. On the other side, it is exceedingly rare for a male character to think about his own attractiveness. Instead, he is also always thinking about the attractiveness of his female companion. I would really love for someone to re-write the Incarnations of Immortality so that I could enjoy the stories again while cutting out all the bullshit sexism and frankly poor character development.
I think that Piers actually believes he is writing strong female characters, which is pretty scary. The prospect of actually re-reading all of these books is scary too, so I'm just going to spare myself and remember the stories fondly.
He is capable of writing extremely thought-provoking, imaginative stories that are both original and speak to fundamental aspects of the human condition. The mystery is that he does so infrequently, despite being one of the most prolific authors in the speculative fiction. Quantity of production slamming right into the proverbial nuts of quality. Well this first novel in the Incarnations of Immortality series is certainly one that resides in the relatively exclusive group of high quality Piers Anthony books.
Along with Macroscope which I need to re-read soon , it is my favorite of his novels and I found myself impressed by both the general concept of the story as well as his execution of it.
The Incarnations series is founded on the premise that humans assume the roles of 5 of the 7 major supernatural offices called "Incarnations" i. The other 2 Incarnations, Good and Evil, are permanently held by the Big G and the man downstairs who are engaged in a perpetual fight for the souls of all mankind. All of this takes place in a world similar though advanced to ours, except that both science and magic exist side by side e. As you can guess based on the title, this first book in the series focuses on the Incarnation of Death Zane is a lonely, suicidal man who, while contemplating taking his own life, accidentally kills Death I know, ironical.
Zane is then tasked with assuming the role of Death. I know this may sound cheesy, but it is actually handled pretty well in the story and has some very humorous moments. Death's role is to send the souls of the deceased to either heaven or hell or purgatory depending on the balance between the good and evil present in the soul at the time of death.
Kinda comforting isn't it. Anyway, good deeds are extremely light. In fact, they are lighter than air and actually float. On the otehr hand, evil deeds have substantial weight and weigh a soul down. That's about all you need for set up. The rest of this very interesting novel involves Zane learning about how the universe is run and coming into conflict with Satan over the soul of a particular person. In addition to being very entertaining, there are some very neat discussions about the nature of good and evil.
This is Piers Anthony at his best. I liked how technology was mixed with magic. In On a Pale Horse, the first book in the Incarnations of Immortality Series, there's a similar kind of mixing going on.
The story focuses on a normal man, Zane, becoming the next incarnation of Death. Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob is very well known for his works in the fantasy and in the science fiction writings as well. He is very well known for some of his insane novels. By Gabrielle Bruney. Behold a Pale Horse. Just prior to the trial of Terry Nichols inThe Guardian described it as "the manifesto of the militia movement".
Cause of death: Gunshot. The Pale Horse is a delightful horror mystery, one that allows you to feel the satisfaction of figuring out who the killer is before delivering on final devastating surprise. This is a true crowd. The first edition of the novel was published inand was written by Agatha Christie. The book was published in multiple languages including English, consists of pages and is available in Mass Market Paperback format.
And I saw a pale horse, and the name of him who sat upon it was Death, and Sheol joined him and authority was given to him over a fourth of The Earth to kill with the sword, with starvation, with Death, and by the animals of The Earth. Hell followed him. On a Pale Horse. Piers Anthony. Ballantine, - Fiction - pages. When Zane shot Death, he learned, too late, that he would have to assume his place, speeding over the world riding his pale horse, and ending the lives of others.
Pale Horse Rider Book Summary: We are living in a time of unprecedented distrust in America: Faith in the government is at an all-time low, and political groups on both sides of the aisle are able to tout preposterous conspiracy theories as gospel, without much opposition. This book is about a man to whom all of it points, the greatest.
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